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What is it?
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Every volunteer and staff member has a few collection items that capture their imagination in a special way. We've started a series to highlight these items and share them with the museum community. This contribution comes from Adam Pollard, Collection and Exhibit Coordinator, at the Woodstock Museum.
"One of the most interesting items in our collection is the Tug-of-War Trophy won by the 'Men of Might' from Zorra Township.
Tug of war became popular in the 19th century and reached a peak of importance during the 1880s and 1890s throughout Canada, the United States and Europe. The township of Zorra had a tug-of-war team which became world famous in the 1890s.
The 'Men of Might' were formed in 1870, a group of men of Scottish descent from the Zorra area who quickly succeeded in defeating all others in county competitions. The group, consisting of Alex Clark, William R. Munro, Robert McLeod, Ira Hummason, Robert McIntosh and their coach Ebenezer 'Little Abe' Sutherland. In 1888 the "Men of Might "enter a competition in Buffalo, New York and it was here that they shocked their competitors and became American champions. The Chicago Highland Association contested their title and invited them to a match in Chicago in 1890. Due to unfair regulations imposed by the opposing team, they were defeated for the first time. In a rematch which was held the same year at the Embro Fair, the team emerged victorious again.
At the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, the group competed against numerous teams from all over North America and Europe. After a heated competition they again emerged victorious. Thus, they became the world champions and winning the fabulous trophy now housed at the Woodstock Museum NHS."
Thank you to the Woodstock Museum for sharing your collection online!
To check out over 800 other PastPerfect Online sites, visit http://www.pastperfect-online.com. |
One of the benefits of putting your collections in PastPerfect is having great research abilities. The People/Classification/Subjects/Search Terms tab on each of your collection records is designed to organize the terms you can use to find records when searching. These fields are linked to the search functions in the Research area of the program.
By using these fields to record information about the items in your collection, you will make it easier for patrons and researchers to find records and the relations between records. If you are sharing your collection through PastPerfect Online, these fields allow web visitors to explore the connections between catalog records which contain the same name or term.
People - This field is used to identify people who are associated with your items. When you enter names into this field, PastPerfect will automatically add the name to the People Authority File. A record for that person will also be added to the People Biographies area of the program.
Subjects - The Subjects field is most useful for recording subject matter or general themes in works of art, photographs, and items. This field may be useful for listing the incidental details captured in a work of art. For example a landscape painting may include several cows in the background next to a barn. The description of the painting may or may not mention these details.
The Subject Authority File is pre-loaded with terms from the
Library of Congress Thesaurus for Graphical Materials: Subject Terms. This field is especially useful in researching when a researcher is interested in viewing all items in your collection that contain a particular subject, such as "Cows".
Classification - This field is designed to contain classifications organized in a hierarchical system. It is recommended that you arrange your terms from the general to the specific as in:
Agriculture
Livestock
Cattle
This system works well for quick and easy retrieval, functioning like a finding aid. You may wish to create your classification system before beginning data entry.
Search Terms - This field is used to record any terms or words that will be helpful in researching the catalog database. These terms are specific to your organization and may include family names, organizations, or entities that are associated with items in your collection. For example, you may have photographs, objects and archival materials from the Rocky Pine Ranch. Including "Rocky Pine Ranch" as a search term allows all items connected with Ranch to be related within PastPerfect.
If you have questions about populating these fields, using authority files, or sharing these fields on your PastPerfect Online records, contact us at 1-800-562-6080 or [email protected]. |
 Online Collection Spotlight
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"The American Civil War Museum is home to one of the world's most comprehensive and important collections of artifacts, documents and historic sites related to the Civil War and its legacies. It includes The Museum of the Confederacy Collection, which comprises in excess of 100,000 items including Confederate military artifacts, domestic items, photographs, documents, and more. The collection also features more than 3,000 items relating to African American history, in the John H. Motley Collection." From The Collection acwm.org/collection
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